
Honeydew
12
“Captain Jim Macpherson,” I replied. “And a Happy
Christmas to you too. I’m a school teacher from Dorset,
in the west of England.”
“Ah, Dorset,” he smiled. “I know this place. I know it
very well.” We shared my rum ration and his excellent
sausage. And we talked, Connie, how we talked. He spoke
almost perfect English. But it turned out that he had
never set foot in Dorset, never even been to England.
He had learned all he knew of England from school,
and from reading books in English. His favourite writer
was Thomas Hardy, his favourite book Far from the
Madding Crowd. So out there in no man’s land we talked
of Bathsheba and Gabriel Oak and Sergeant Troy and
Dorset. He had a wife and one son, born just six months
ago. As I looked about me there were huddles of khaki
and grey everywhere, all over no man’s land, smoking,
laughing, talking, drinking, eating. Hans Wolf and I
shared what was left of your wonderful Christmas cake,
Connie. He thought the marzipan was the best he had
ever tasted. I agreed. We agreed about everything, and
he was my enemy. There never was a Christmas party
like it, Connie.
Then someone, I don’t know who, brought out a
football. Greatcoats were dumped in piles to make
goalposts, and the next thing we knew it was Tommy
against Fritz out in the middle of no man’s land. Hans
Wolf and I looked on and cheered, clapping our hands
and stamping our feet, to keep out the cold as much as
anything. There was a moment when I noticed our
breaths mingling in the air between us. He saw it too
and smiled. “Jim Macpherson,” he said after a while,
“I think this is how we should resolve this war. A football
match. No one dies in a football match. No children are
orphaned. No wives become widows.”
“I’d prefer cricket,” I told him. “Then we Tommies
could be sure of winning, probably.” We laughed at
that, and together we watched the game. Sad to say,
marzipan:
a sweet
covering on a
cake made
from sugar,
eggs and
almonds